"Well, that's to be expected at first. How many did you get?"
"I killed two," confessed Kenneth, miserably, "but I couldn't find either of them. I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm not a crack shot by any means, but I used to be able to hit something!"
"These quail are tough customers Perhaps that gun" began Bill Hunter.
"I never saw an Eastern shot, no matter how good, who could hit a flock of balloons first day out," interrupted Corbell, consolingly. "Never! It's a different game. Suppose we trade guns for a little while. I'd really like to try that little fellow."
Kenneth agreed. He found to his astonishment that of the fifty loaded brass shells only about twenty remained charged.
"I did not realize I had shot so many!" he confessed. Then more boldly. "Would you mind, Mr. Corbell, if I just trailed you for a little while? I want to see how it's done, and get some hints. I can pick up your birds for you."
"Certainly. Come along. But there isn't much to learn. It's a matter of practise."
"What do we do now? Hunt up another covey?"
"No: go right back over the same ground. We didn't get up a quarter of them. We could go back and forth there all day and still get up birds: and the oftener we went the closer they'd lie."
On this second trip Kenneth added to his humility. Corbell was a beautiful shot. And he found that, even with the preoccupation of shooting, the older man was able to mark dead birds more accurately than could Kenneth, who was giving his whole attention to it.
"You'll find him about three feet further to the left, under that brush with the dead stalk," he told Kenneth. The bird had been the first of three killed in a scattering rise from one spot, when Corbell had to turn square away for the second and third. "It's a matter of spotting some one individual bush or even spear of grass," he told Kenneth. When the shooters grouped again at the end of this drive, Corbell was enthusiastic about the little Scott.
